Franz Kurowski (November 17, 1923 − May 28, 2011) was a German author of fiction and non-fiction who specialised in World War II topics. He is best known for producing apologist, negationist and semi-fictional works on the history of the war, including the popular English-language series Panzer Aces and Infantry Aces.
Kurowski's first publications appeared during the Nazi era; from 1958 until his death he worked as a freelance writer. He wrote 400 books for children and adults, under his own name and various pseudonyms. Kurowski wrote, among other things, for the weekly pulp war stories series Der Landser.
Kurowski produced numerous accounts featuring the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS, providing laudatory and non-peer reviewed wartime chronicles of military units and highly decorated personnel. Historians have dismissed his works, pointing out that Kurowski mixed fact and fiction and advances the discredited concept of Nur-Soldat ("merely soldier"). Rather than providing an authentic representation of the war experience, his works emphasized heroics and convey a distorted image of the German armed forces in World War II. Critics have been dismissive of Kurowski, describing him as a "hackwriter" and his works as Landser-pulp ("soldier-pulp") and "laudatory texts", that provide a "mix of fact and fancy".
Kurowski's books have strong denialist tendencies; he held onto Nazi propaganda's military and civilian statistics and presented history devoid of any crimes by the Wehrmacht or the Waffen-SS. A number of his books have been published by far-right publishing houses such as the , the Arndt Verlag, and the .
Education and career Born on 17 November 1923, Kurowski grew up in Dortmund and, after primary school, trained as a turner. From 1942, he served as a soldier in World War II in southeast Europe and North Africa, where he completed his training as a radio operator, a parachutist, and interpreter of Modern Greek. In 1942, he was awarded the Storyteller Prize for his work in the Wacht im Südosten (Southeast Watch). These were propaganda publications (100 or so pamphlets) issued by the Propagandakompanie, the propaganda wing of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS.
After 1945, he returned to civilian occupation and worked as a foreman and supervisor in a machinery factory. In 1958, he started working as a freelance writer; from 1968 to 1978, he was the editor of Die Oase (Oasis), a periodical of Deutsches Afrika-Korps e.V, the German Afrika Korps veterans' association. From 1989 to 1996, Kurowski was editor-in-chief of the far-right publication Nation Europa, then named Deutsche Monatshefte. Kurowski died in 2011.
Work for Der Landser
Kurowski wrote for the weekly pulp series Der Landser (a colloquial term for a German army soldier, used during World War II). Since its founding, the magazine was criticized for glorifying war and delivering a distorted image of the Wehrmacht and Nazi Germany during World War II. The details of his novels and semi-fictional accounts was accurate regarding minor technical details, but their content was often inauthentic and withheld important contextual information from the reader. Antisemitism, German war crimes, the repressive nature of the German government, and the causes of the war were not mentioned. German news magazine Der Spiegel once described Der Landser as the "expert journal for the whitewashing of the Wehrmacht".
Portrayal of the Wehrmacht and the Waffen-SS
Historians Ronald Smelser and Edward J. Davies, in their 2008 work The Myth of the Eastern Front, characterise Kurowski as one of the principal Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS "gurus", or authors popular among the readers who, in their opinion, romanticize the German war effort on the Eastern Front, and in particular the Waffen-SS, alongside authors such as Richard Landwehr, an ardent admirer of the Waffen-SS, and the far-right writer and publisher Patrick Agte. The book describes the gurus as authors who "have picked up and disseminated the myths of the Wehrmacht in a wide variety of popular publications that romanticize the German struggle in Russia".
Aces series
Kurowski's works were published in Germany since 1958, but remained inaccessible to English-speaking audiences. J.J. Fedorowicz Publishing, whom Smelser and Davies describe as a leading publisher of war-romancing literature, released Kurowski's two popular works, Panzer Aces and Infantry Aces, in the U.S. in 1992 and 1994. In their analysis of the series, which also included Panzer Aces II and Panzer Aces III, Smelser and Davies write:Kurowski gives the readers an almost heroic version of the German soldier, guiltless of any war crimes, actually incapable of such behavior. (...) Sacrifice and humility are his hallmarks. Their actions win them medals, badges and promotions, yet they remain indifferent to these awards. The cover art evokes heroism, determination and might of the German soldier and his weapons.
The Panzer Aces series focuses on the combat careers of successful German tank commanders and popular Waffen-SS personalities such as Kurt "Panzermeyer" Meyer, Jochen Peiper, Paul Hausser, and Rudolf von Ribbentrop, the son of Reich Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, among others, who Kurowski terms "aces". The series features a famous "panzer ace" Michael Wittmann, who enjoyed cult status in the popular perceptions of the Waffen-SS, along with the actions of another "ace", Franz Bäke, in the Cherkassy Pocket. In Kurowski's retelling, after fighting unit after unit of the Red Army, Bäke is able to establish a corridor to the trapped German forces, while "wiping out" the attacking Soviets. In another of Kurowski's accounts, while attempting to relieve the 6th Army encircled in Stalingrad, Bäke destroys thirty-two enemy tanks in a single engagement. The narratives in Panzer Aces do not include bibliographies or cite sources; the account of Ribbentrop is presented in the first person.
Highly decorated soldiers Kurowski produced numerous books featuring highly decorated personnel of the Wehrmacht and Waffen-SS, including Luftwaffe pilots and U-boat commanders of Nazi Germany's navy (the Kriegsmarine). His works include books about fighter aces Hans-Joachim Marseille (under the title German Fighter Ace Hans-Joachim Marseille: The Life Story of the Star of Africa), Otto Kittel, Heinrich Bär, and Joachim Müncheberg, along with the "panzer ace" Kurt Knispel. Many of these were reprinted in the 1990–2000s by the German publisher Flechsig Verlag.
Kurowski wrote extensively about successful U-boat commanders, "U-boat aces" in his terminology, including Helmut Witte, Johann Mohr, and Heinrich Lehmann-Willenbrock. Under the pen name Karl Alman, he wrote a hagiography of Wolfgang Lüth, "the most successful U-boat commandant of the Second World War" (according to the subtitle), and many more.
In addition to works on individual military men, Kurowski wrote compilations such as Ritter der sieben Meere: Ritterkreuzträger der U-Boot-Waffe (Knights of the Seven Seas: Knight's Cross Winners of the U-boat Arm), published in 1975. The book was published in the U.S. as Knight's Cross Holders of the U-Boat Service by Schiffer Publishing. U.S. based editions also included Luftwaffe Aces published by J.J. Fedorowicz and Panzergrenadier Aces: German Mechanized Infantrymen in World War II, Jump Into Hell: German Paratroopers in World War II, and The Brandenburger Commandos: Germany's Elite Warrior Spies in World War II, published by Stackpole Books in 1997.
U-boat war Kurowski, under his own name and as Karl Alman, wrote numerous accounts of Nazi Germany's U-boat warfare, starting with the 1965 book Angriff, ran, versenken; Die U-Bootschlacht im Atlantik (Attack, At 'em, Sink: The U-boat Battle of the Atlantic). He followed up with the 1967 Graue Wölfe in blauer See. Der Einsatz der deutschen U-Boote im Mittelmeer (Gray Wolves in Blue Sea: Deployment of the German U-boats in the Mediterranean); according to the preface to this semi-fictional account, the book described the war "as it actually happened".
The German scholar classifies Kurowski's 1981 book Günther Prien, der Wolf und sein Admiral (Günther Prien, the Wolf and his Admiral), published by , as an "almost perfect example of a skillful distillation of the Nazi understanding of the Second World War". The Canadian historian Michael Hadley comments on Kurowski's goals for the narrative: Here he wished to commemorate the "meritorious soldier and human being Günther Prien [who is] forgotten neither by the old submariners nor" —and this would have startled most observers in Germany today [in 1995] —"by the young submariners of the Federal German Navy".
In a work that examines the role of Landser-pulp ("soldier-pulp") literature in the East German neo-Nazi movement, Dirk Wilking, head of the Mobile Advisory Team for the Brandenburg Institute for Community Consultation, uses Kurowski's 1982 volume Jagd auf "graue Wölfe", 1943 (Hunt for "Gray Wolves", 1943) to describe the ideological content of Landser-pulp: "war is described as consisting of random coincidences and as a fateful interplay; no questions of guilt or consequences are raised. The concepts of war are described in the terms of Nazi wartime propaganda, such as 'drama', 'tragedy' and 'fate' (direct quotes from Gray Wolves). This not only has a war-trivialising effect, but also shows war as a desirable state". The "divine principle of war as a duty" and a "natural event" is a hallmark of such works, Wilking concludes. It also features pictures of sinking ships and U-boat militaria.
In 1957, military historian Jürgen Rohwer began a critical examination of the data published on the sunken tonnage claimed by Nazi U-boat commanders. Afterwards, Kurowski was among the authors who held on to the details of the Nazi propaganda regardless of Rohwer's research results.
Historical negationism
World War II series and Battle of Stalingrad
Kurowski played a key role in the negationiost series So war der Zweite Weltkrieg (And thus was the Second World War), a seven-volume pseudo history of World War II. The project was launched in 1989 by the , one of the largest right-wing publishing groups. For the series, Kurowski was listed as editorial staff. The series was reissued by Flechsig Verlag in the 2000s under Kurowski's name. In the foreword to the 1994 book Rechtsextremismus in Deutschland (Right-wing Extremism in Germany) by Wolfgang Benz, the historian and journalist described the book project as an example of the "nationalist battle painting" in the "journalism of gray and brown zone."
According to Insa Eschebach, director of the Ravensbrück National Memorial, Kurowski's 1992 book Stalingrad. Die Schlacht, die Hitlers Mythos zerstört (Stalingrad: The battle that Destroyed Hitler's Myth) serves "primarily to rehabilitate the decent, powerful German soldiers". The term "war criminals" appears only in quotation marks; the "brilliant successes of the Wehrmacht" is the key theme, along with the "victimhood" and "downfall of German soldiers". Kurowski considers Stalingrad as the "Golgotha of the 6th Army," without mentioning that this religious metaphor comes from the 1953 book Stalingrad – bis zur letzten Patrone (Stalingrad: To the Last Bullet), written by Heinz Schröter, a former member of a propaganda company: "When it comes to Stalingrad as Golgotha of the 6th army, it begs the question: 'Why was a German army even there'"?
Bombing of Dresden Kurowski wrote several books that discuss the February 1945 Allied air raids on Dresden. His book Das Massaker von Dresden und der anglo-amerikanische Bombenterror 1944/45 (The Massacre of Dresden and the Anglo-American Terror Bombing in 1944/45) was published by the extreme right-wing publisher Druffel Verlag in 1996. His other books on the subject, Bomben über Dresden (Bombs Over Dresden) and Dresden, followed in 2001 and 2003.